Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 829
March 21, 2016
“We should not be immune or afraid of critics”: President Obama retains optimism as Raul Castro criticizes U.S. policy during historic Cuba meeting
March 20, 2016
I slept with the enemy: Here’s what an unlikely romance taught me about racism, Donald Trump, and our cultural obsession with male rebellion
I once loved a man who hung a huge Confederate flag on his living room wall. This was a strange turn of events for me, a woman who at various stages of life has been described as a commie pinko, a bleeding heart liberal and a vegan, un-American Femi-Nazi. And yet, I not only hooked up with this guy; I started a relationship with him and stayed with him for almost a decade. He was a punk dude I met in the grocery store, a wily intense artist. These days I’m thinking of him--and his flag—to try to figure out the people in the crowds cheering for Donald Trump.
The first time I walked into this guy’s living room, I got an eyeful of that huge, red, hateful symbol, and stood stock-still, eyes wide. I felt every muscle in my body tense. I felt nauseous and confused. I had been considering kissing this guy. He had made me laugh, and now I would unfortunately have to first hold an intimate teach-in for one and then set his living room on fire.
“Dude,” I said. “That is so fucked up that you have that hanging on the wall. That’s so racist.” I could feel my dream of a perfect alterna-boyfriend shattering, my crush withering inside me. In vivid detail, I prepared the arguments I’d used against racist white people throughout my life. I felt myself tensing for the battles I’d experienced at anti-Klan demonstrations in Boston and anti-Nazi demonstrations in Minneapolis and arguments with racist relatives around the holiday dinner table. I’d always loved the underdog—whether it was a cause or a sweetheart—and that trait definitely delivered its share of adventures.
This guy, whom I’ll call Abe, looked at me with a mixture of horror and consternation. “I found it in a Dumpster,” he said. “I just thought—oh, badass. Like Dukes of Hazzard and the General Lee.”
That’s right. He had just turned 30, and he had absolutely no idea what the Confederate flag actually represented. For him it was an accessory, a decoration, not a symbol of hundreds of years of racial violence and brutality. This might seem hard to believe; it certainly was for me. But I also remembered a time back in my childhood when the General Lee was just a car with doors that didn’t open right. I stood there in his living room and thought about all the times I had needed someone else to stand in front of me with a scowl, to tell me something I thought was messed up—and then to decide to stay and talk with me about it. At the time, I felt like it was finally my turn. Now, when I look back on this unlikely romance, I feel something else unexpected; I feel like I have a window into the mind of the kind of man who makes up Donald Trump’s voting base.
Back before I met Abe, I was a bookish nerd in college, but also an anarchist and a labor activist. Even as I studied radical democratic theory in anarchist study groups, clutching my crumpled photocopies of articles by Paulo Freire and Saul Alinsky and Pierre Bourdieu, I thought hard about my family’s own background in Europe and in this country, where lack of education had consistently denied every person a chance to pursue a career or develop intellectual interests. The first women in my family to get college degrees were my aunts, who did so courtesy of the convent. My dad was the first man to get a degree, and my mom got her GED after immigrating to the U.S. I thought about what it meant to have descended from German miners on both sides of my family and from a butcher in rural Arkansas. Because my entire family was of German descent, it felt all the more urgent that I think about the appeal of fascism in all its forms.
Abe was like many of the members of my own family in that he worked with his hands and hadn’t been to college. His high school experience was not especially rigorous, either, and he was decidedly labeled a “bad kid," not “college material." He was raised in a conservative, religious, single-parent household at the edge of poverty. But from the first conversation I had with him, I could see that he was intelligent, quick-witted and introspective. I fell immediately in love with him, and I think part of why I did so was that I felt at home with him, with his rough story that somehow reflected the story of my own family.
When he told me that first day that he hung up the Confederate flag because it seemed “badass,” I swallowed my nausea and decided to see if he would change. The next time I came over, the flag was down. He said, with honest forthrightness, that he’d had no idea how offensive it was.
I believed him. He worked in a wood mill with immigrants from Somalia and Russia and interacted on a daily basis with a much more diverse cast of characters than I did in my safe, homogenous graduate school classrooms.
He’d thought about what I’d said, and he took down the flag. And then he thanked me for explaining everything without making him feel like shit.
Only, I kind of did make him feel like shit, at least in my book. I wanted to make sure he understood that this was important. In response, he could have told me to go to hell, but instead he thought about everything I told him.
Now, I’m not saying that every racist is an innocent who needs to be understood and humored. I believe—because I’ve seen it in my own family—that some racists are hardened and unteachable. I’ve had conversations where I was reduced to staring in open-mouthed horror as I realized that common ground was a fantasy, that the other person seemed to take delight in his or her extreme views. Abe was not that way; he honestly didn’t know enough about history. But from this place of not-knowing, he was looking for any symbols of rebellion he could find. He drove a loud muscle car, listened to punk and heavy metal at ear-shredding decibels, and wore a jean jacket vest covered with patches. At night we snuggled together to watch movies, he wanted to show me the world that he cared about, the men he’d chosen as cinematic replacement fathers: Dennis Hopper in "Easy Rider," Al Pacino in "Scarface," Clint Eastwood in everything. Guys who went out with guns blazing.
As a rebel myself, I think a lot about the few ways that working-class people have left to express their outrage. I came to my politics via anger at the status quo, but it was often hard to find spaces to let loose and express that anger. I’d lived in a vegan co-op where I had never felt pure enough with my dietary choices, and then I’d gone through several years where I could never reach my ideals as a responsible, engaged citizen. I didn’t go to all the meetings I felt I should have, I bought the grapes during the boycott, and I used the Amnesty International address labels without sending in a donation. Political virtue seemed like an endless list I could never complete. Maybe that was why it was so satisfying and necessary to find movements and moments, here and there, where I could metaphorically set things on fire: string angry sentences into a microphone, yell myself hoarse outside the house of a strike-breaking business owner, or get together with hundreds of other people to block a street and stop traffic. Those actions fit with my principals. Plus, stepping far outside the status quo delivered a jolt of raw adrenaline. I found those fellow loudmouths through what I’d learned around college campuses, and Abe hadn’t fallen into those circles of organized rebellion.
As schools have become mills of standardized testing, and as funding has been drained away from urban school systems as well as poorer suburban and rural schools, precious few encounter options for political activism in their K-12 education. Some working-class people—including many of my friends in various cities whom I’ve worked with in labor coalitions—come to develop left-leaning politics through union membership. If you’re not a union member, you might not know that unions put a lot of energy into political education and provide a great community in which to understand the world.
But unionization has dramatically declined or been restricted in places where Trump now has appeal, partly through limitations to organizing and through the relocation of manufacturing beyond U.S. borders. One side-effect, in addition to causing incomes of many middle-class people to tank, is that the education, historical awareness and class-consciousness-building that unions used to provide for people like Abe have now been filled by right-wing hate-mongering personalities like Trump. Add to that a history of repression of activist organizations—from the Red Scare to surveillance in the '60s—and arrive at the place we now find ourselves: a weird, nightmarish place where Donald Trump looks like Che Guevara.
I often hear people wondering what is the matter with those who would choose someone like Donald Trump as their candidate, and why, as Tom Frank explains in his book, "What’s the Matter with Kansas?," the machine of the far right took over the populist language of the left. I don’t think there’s one answer, and I do think that some voters were swayed by political arguments about guns and abortion from well-funded and savvy right-wing organizations.
On the other hand, political scientist Richard M. Skinner pointed out that many voters don’t choose their candidates based on ideological positions but instead partially because they don’t have an ideological framework.
I’m going to take this one step further and argue that though they might not have a framework, they have a need to rebel and to see themselves as part of a compelling narrative, to cast themselves in some sort of heroic light. I’ve heard this so often from family members and friends who support Trump: “At least he’s shaking things up.”
After I heard this enough times, I started to think about Abe and his flag and his "Scarface" and his Clint Eastwood. Then I saw commentary written by Okla Elliott, a professor and author of "Bernie Sanders: The Essential Guide," who describes a conversation with an Uber cab driver and Trump supporter. Elliott booked a series of rides with this driver, and they got to talking about politics. As Elliott described Sanders’ positions bit by bit (calmly, without insulting the drivers’ intelligence), the driver was won over to Sanders’ position.
That would seem—by traditional political frameworks—to be impossible. But these conversations are relatively common today, and they happen because some voters are choosing Trump purely out of a need to rebel. That need is real, and it is something to cherish as much as it is to fear. Trump tells a story in which the white worker is a rebellious hero with a mission. Trump seems to give voice to that story, to flip the bird to the establishment—and that is more compelling to voters than any of his ridiculous, racist, dangerous or contradictory political standpoints. I know this from my own experience: The sense that something is wrong starts in the gut. Then you can get lucky and find people to talk to about that desire to rebel, but for the white working-class, finding the left-leaning alternative has become an obstacle course. And they are so often seen as a faceless mass: the racist, hopeless, backward, rural enemy.
Over our years together, Abe and I taught each other many things. I talked about race in this country, and he taught me about the ever-present appeal of the "outlaw" for working-class white males, the only remaining identity refuge after losing economic standing. He'd later shake his head at himself and wince that he ever had a Confederate flag on his wall. I'm glad I didn't dismiss him out of hand, because he was teachable, as was I.
Now, we all have a critical opportunity. While it might be satisfying to deride Trump supporters as idiots, racists and rubes, history shows we’d be better served by figuring out how to re-knit the country around the only fable we have left, the “outlaw” in all its incarnations, our version of the kokopeli trickster that refuses to be tamed. Trump’s appeal rests in his appearance of outlandish untameability, and the fact that left-wing rebellion has been erased from public consciousness. Rather than mocking anyone’s stupidity, we should understand the campaign of cultural impoverishment that has led to this frightening and critical moment—and we need to remind people there are outlaws and bad-asses on the left—from Howard Fast to Joe Hill to Mother Jones to Paul Robeson to the protesters of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter… and on and on and on.
I once loved a man who hung a huge Confederate flag on his living room wall. This was a strange turn of events for me, a woman who at various stages of life has been described as a commie pinko, a bleeding heart liberal and a vegan, un-American Femi-Nazi. And yet, I not only hooked up with this guy; I started a relationship with him and stayed with him for almost a decade. He was a punk dude I met in the grocery store, a wily intense artist. These days I’m thinking of him--and his flag—to try to figure out the people in the crowds cheering for Donald Trump.
The first time I walked into this guy’s living room, I got an eyeful of that huge, red, hateful symbol, and stood stock-still, eyes wide. I felt every muscle in my body tense. I felt nauseous and confused. I had been considering kissing this guy. He had made me laugh, and now I would unfortunately have to first hold an intimate teach-in for one and then set his living room on fire.
“Dude,” I said. “That is so fucked up that you have that hanging on the wall. That’s so racist.” I could feel my dream of a perfect alterna-boyfriend shattering, my crush withering inside me. In vivid detail, I prepared the arguments I’d used against racist white people throughout my life. I felt myself tensing for the battles I’d experienced at anti-Klan demonstrations in Boston and anti-Nazi demonstrations in Minneapolis and arguments with racist relatives around the holiday dinner table. I’d always loved the underdog—whether it was a cause or a sweetheart—and that trait definitely delivered its share of adventures.
This guy, whom I’ll call Abe, looked at me with a mixture of horror and consternation. “I found it in a Dumpster,” he said. “I just thought—oh, badass. Like Dukes of Hazzard and the General Lee.”
That’s right. He had just turned 30, and he had absolutely no idea what the Confederate flag actually represented. For him it was an accessory, a decoration, not a symbol of hundreds of years of racial violence and brutality. This might seem hard to believe; it certainly was for me. But I also remembered a time back in my childhood when the General Lee was just a car with doors that didn’t open right. I stood there in his living room and thought about all the times I had needed someone else to stand in front of me with a scowl, to tell me something I thought was messed up—and then to decide to stay and talk with me about it. At the time, I felt like it was finally my turn. Now, when I look back on this unlikely romance, I feel something else unexpected; I feel like I have a window into the mind of the kind of man who makes up Donald Trump’s voting base.
Back before I met Abe, I was a bookish nerd in college, but also an anarchist and a labor activist. Even as I studied radical democratic theory in anarchist study groups, clutching my crumpled photocopies of articles by Paulo Freire and Saul Alinsky and Pierre Bourdieu, I thought hard about my family’s own background in Europe and in this country, where lack of education had consistently denied every person a chance to pursue a career or develop intellectual interests. The first women in my family to get college degrees were my aunts, who did so courtesy of the convent. My dad was the first man to get a degree, and my mom got her GED after immigrating to the U.S. I thought about what it meant to have descended from German miners on both sides of my family and from a butcher in rural Arkansas. Because my entire family was of German descent, it felt all the more urgent that I think about the appeal of fascism in all its forms.
Abe was like many of the members of my own family in that he worked with his hands and hadn’t been to college. His high school experience was not especially rigorous, either, and he was decidedly labeled a “bad kid," not “college material." He was raised in a conservative, religious, single-parent household at the edge of poverty. But from the first conversation I had with him, I could see that he was intelligent, quick-witted and introspective. I fell immediately in love with him, and I think part of why I did so was that I felt at home with him, with his rough story that somehow reflected the story of my own family.
When he told me that first day that he hung up the Confederate flag because it seemed “badass,” I swallowed my nausea and decided to see if he would change. The next time I came over, the flag was down. He said, with honest forthrightness, that he’d had no idea how offensive it was.
I believed him. He worked in a wood mill with immigrants from Somalia and Russia and interacted on a daily basis with a much more diverse cast of characters than I did in my safe, homogenous graduate school classrooms.
He’d thought about what I’d said, and he took down the flag. And then he thanked me for explaining everything without making him feel like shit.
Only, I kind of did make him feel like shit, at least in my book. I wanted to make sure he understood that this was important. In response, he could have told me to go to hell, but instead he thought about everything I told him.
Now, I’m not saying that every racist is an innocent who needs to be understood and humored. I believe—because I’ve seen it in my own family—that some racists are hardened and unteachable. I’ve had conversations where I was reduced to staring in open-mouthed horror as I realized that common ground was a fantasy, that the other person seemed to take delight in his or her extreme views. Abe was not that way; he honestly didn’t know enough about history. But from this place of not-knowing, he was looking for any symbols of rebellion he could find. He drove a loud muscle car, listened to punk and heavy metal at ear-shredding decibels, and wore a jean jacket vest covered with patches. At night we snuggled together to watch movies, he wanted to show me the world that he cared about, the men he’d chosen as cinematic replacement fathers: Dennis Hopper in "Easy Rider," Al Pacino in "Scarface," Clint Eastwood in everything. Guys who went out with guns blazing.
As a rebel myself, I think a lot about the few ways that working-class people have left to express their outrage. I came to my politics via anger at the status quo, but it was often hard to find spaces to let loose and express that anger. I’d lived in a vegan co-op where I had never felt pure enough with my dietary choices, and then I’d gone through several years where I could never reach my ideals as a responsible, engaged citizen. I didn’t go to all the meetings I felt I should have, I bought the grapes during the boycott, and I used the Amnesty International address labels without sending in a donation. Political virtue seemed like an endless list I could never complete. Maybe that was why it was so satisfying and necessary to find movements and moments, here and there, where I could metaphorically set things on fire: string angry sentences into a microphone, yell myself hoarse outside the house of a strike-breaking business owner, or get together with hundreds of other people to block a street and stop traffic. Those actions fit with my principals. Plus, stepping far outside the status quo delivered a jolt of raw adrenaline. I found those fellow loudmouths through what I’d learned around college campuses, and Abe hadn’t fallen into those circles of organized rebellion.
As schools have become mills of standardized testing, and as funding has been drained away from urban school systems as well as poorer suburban and rural schools, precious few encounter options for political activism in their K-12 education. Some working-class people—including many of my friends in various cities whom I’ve worked with in labor coalitions—come to develop left-leaning politics through union membership. If you’re not a union member, you might not know that unions put a lot of energy into political education and provide a great community in which to understand the world.
But unionization has dramatically declined or been restricted in places where Trump now has appeal, partly through limitations to organizing and through the relocation of manufacturing beyond U.S. borders. One side-effect, in addition to causing incomes of many middle-class people to tank, is that the education, historical awareness and class-consciousness-building that unions used to provide for people like Abe have now been filled by right-wing hate-mongering personalities like Trump. Add to that a history of repression of activist organizations—from the Red Scare to surveillance in the '60s—and arrive at the place we now find ourselves: a weird, nightmarish place where Donald Trump looks like Che Guevara.
I often hear people wondering what is the matter with those who would choose someone like Donald Trump as their candidate, and why, as Tom Frank explains in his book, "What’s the Matter with Kansas?," the machine of the far right took over the populist language of the left. I don’t think there’s one answer, and I do think that some voters were swayed by political arguments about guns and abortion from well-funded and savvy right-wing organizations.
On the other hand, political scientist Richard M. Skinner pointed out that many voters don’t choose their candidates based on ideological positions but instead partially because they don’t have an ideological framework.
I’m going to take this one step further and argue that though they might not have a framework, they have a need to rebel and to see themselves as part of a compelling narrative, to cast themselves in some sort of heroic light. I’ve heard this so often from family members and friends who support Trump: “At least he’s shaking things up.”
After I heard this enough times, I started to think about Abe and his flag and his "Scarface" and his Clint Eastwood. Then I saw commentary written by Okla Elliott, a professor and author of "Bernie Sanders: The Essential Guide," who describes a conversation with an Uber cab driver and Trump supporter. Elliott booked a series of rides with this driver, and they got to talking about politics. As Elliott described Sanders’ positions bit by bit (calmly, without insulting the drivers’ intelligence), the driver was won over to Sanders’ position.
That would seem—by traditional political frameworks—to be impossible. But these conversations are relatively common today, and they happen because some voters are choosing Trump purely out of a need to rebel. That need is real, and it is something to cherish as much as it is to fear. Trump tells a story in which the white worker is a rebellious hero with a mission. Trump seems to give voice to that story, to flip the bird to the establishment—and that is more compelling to voters than any of his ridiculous, racist, dangerous or contradictory political standpoints. I know this from my own experience: The sense that something is wrong starts in the gut. Then you can get lucky and find people to talk to about that desire to rebel, but for the white working-class, finding the left-leaning alternative has become an obstacle course. And they are so often seen as a faceless mass: the racist, hopeless, backward, rural enemy.
Over our years together, Abe and I taught each other many things. I talked about race in this country, and he taught me about the ever-present appeal of the "outlaw" for working-class white males, the only remaining identity refuge after losing economic standing. He'd later shake his head at himself and wince that he ever had a Confederate flag on his wall. I'm glad I didn't dismiss him out of hand, because he was teachable, as was I.
Now, we all have a critical opportunity. While it might be satisfying to deride Trump supporters as idiots, racists and rubes, history shows we’d be better served by figuring out how to re-knit the country around the only fable we have left, the “outlaw” in all its incarnations, our version of the kokopeli trickster that refuses to be tamed. Trump’s appeal rests in his appearance of outlandish untameability, and the fact that left-wing rebellion has been erased from public consciousness. Rather than mocking anyone’s stupidity, we should understand the campaign of cultural impoverishment that has led to this frightening and critical moment—and we need to remind people there are outlaws and bad-asses on the left—from Howard Fast to Joe Hill to Mother Jones to Paul Robeson to the protesters of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter… and on and on and on.
Trump’s jackbooted thugs against political correctness: Violence, fascism and the real assault on free speech
“Music is so abused these days”: XTC’s Andy Partridge opens up about songwriting, painting and developing the “cruel parent gene” toward your own art
Miseries of a stay-at-home dad
I bounce Henry on my shoulder at two o’clock in the morning. He moans and raises his head to survey the dark living room. He stares over my shoulder, eyes wide open, examining the shadows. Breast milk soaks my t-shirt, along with drool created by tiny, jagged teeth piercing his gums. I push his head back down with my palm, but he resists and releases a defiant scream. I bounce. I bargain with myself. I would donate a kidney for a full night’s rest. I would empty my checking account for a nap. I would never eat again at Five Guys Burgers for a few moments to shut my eyes. More Narratively: "My Runaway Childhood" Outside, the red line train hums at its stop near our fifth-floor apartment. My foggy brain registers the conductor’s muffled voice echoing from the speaker. Chicago stills during the early morning hours, but our living room remains active; a street light glimmers between the blinds. I bounce. Henry’s hot breath rushes from his lungs. The train departs, humming northbound into the night. More from Narratively: "The Night My Parents Had me Kidnapped" I lower us to a multicolored-foam play mat and lie flat on my back. Henry leans on my chest like a professional wrestler pinning his opponent. I close my eyes. The toilet flushes in the apartment next door, my neighbor ridding herself of another cigarette butt. While Henry listens to the rushing water, I consider my options: toss him out the window or ask my wife for help. However, neither of these options are included in the deal. I am on the clock, so I must remain conscious, battling an opponent with a delicious scalp and wonderfully chubby legs. Wandering through my hazy mind, I attempt to remember why I signed up for this job. More from Narratively: "I Can't Die Before My Son" While staring at the ceiling, my mind focuses on choices made after Henry’s birth. I embraced visions of myself as a hip, progressive father — a modern dad unburdened by rigid, traditional views of fatherhood, a man not forced to divide the roles of provider and protector from nurturer and caregiver. At the end of spring, I resigned from a soul-sucking job to care for Henry, four months old, while Cara returned to work at a non-profit in the heart of the city. We desired to leave behind suburban life and a lengthy commute, well suited for many families, but stressful and impossible in our particular situation. We moved into a one-bedroom apartment on the north side of Chicago, near Lake Michigan, a promising place to stroll along the shore. * * * On a balmy summer morning, a week later, I walk the streets of Chicago carrying Henry in a long, green band of cloth wrapped around my torso. He flails his arms and kicks his legs against my waist, studying passersby. We absorb the light reflecting off Lake Michigan’s choppy surface while walking Jolene, our thirty-pound sheltie mix. “Did you tie the wrap?” women ask. “Yes, I watched the YouTube instructional video a thousand times,” I respond. The soft wrap becomes a projection screen on which others display their parenting views. Women offer warm smiles, sometimes clapping. Men stare, dressed in their sleek suits, with furrowed brows. A teenage boy, arms hooked with his girlfriend, whispers loud enough for me to overhear, “Now, that’s the image of a man.” Another scruffy, bearded man in his twenties, standing on a busy street corner, points and roars. The neighborhood policeman leaning against the wall of the 7-11 informs me, “The first time I saw you wearing this thing, I thought you were Middle Eastern.” It is an odd thing to hear said to a pale, blue-eyed male with a Southern accent. The wrap and I become one. I wear Henry to prepare dinner. I wear him on the subway. I wear him to the DMV. In line, a young woman with fashionable short hair approaches me to discuss the wrap. For ten minutes, she tells me about her experience with the wrap and how she proudly avoided a stroller. She speaks like we are members of a special baby-wearing club. Before moving on, she nods as if we are part of a movement. I nod back. At the Art Institute of Chicago, six months old and wrapped against my chest, Henry studies the museum visitors nearby, resting fingers on their chins. Contemplating Picasso’s Mother and Child, I absorb the rich grey, brown and flesh tones, amplified by the neutral white wall. I recognize the mother’s gaze. I saw it on my own face in a photograph taken on the day my son was born. The mother tilts her head downward and stares into the eyes of the infant anchored in her lap. She resembles a classical sculpture more than a living person. Her large, rounded features provide a haven; her tender eyes underpin the playful baby, holding his foot. The mother’s gaze shines a light into the recesses of my heart, into a part of myself I was conditioned to hide. Her tethered soul sends blood rushing through my chest. I learn that Picasso, in the early stages of the painting, included a father next to the mother and child — a father who stood over the boy, dangling a fish; a father who disappeared; a father covered with layers of paint as if he never existed. The warmth in my chest fades. I cannot offer a precise definition of a father, because there are as many types of fathers as creatures in Lake Michigan. I consider that many children equate fathers with absence. Fathers absent by choice or from circumstances beyond their control. Fathers not known and children reaching for their ghosts. * * * “How was the day?” Cara asks. “We survived,” I mumble. Henry drops his bottle and lunges from my lap to crawl towards his mother. Cara sets her work bag on the table and embraces him, their faces gleaming. I sit down on the gray IKEA couch to regroup and brainstorm dinner plans. The odor from a diaper explosion lingers in the trashcan and our one-bedroom apartment appears to have been ransacked by thieves. The floor is a minefield of Cheerios, wooden blocks, and teether toys. During the bedtime routine, I retreat to the bathroom, a closet-sized, windowless space. While the fiberglass tub slowly fills with hot water, I shut the door and turn off the lights. Pipes whistle in the walls, guiding water to rooms throughout the building. Stale cigarette smoke creeps through the vents courtesy of my chain-smoking neighbor. As I lie down, ripples splash against the tub and back against the sides of my body in the pitch-black room. For a few minutes, I close my eyes as the water stills. When motivation arrives, I reach outside the tub for the iPad planted on the floor nearby, and rest it securely on my chest. The screen flashes large, red block letters on an inky background. An endless menu appears, offering an escape. My scrolling index finger struggles to decide what to select. I should watch an award-winning foreign film. I should watch a documentary. I should watch a TED talk. I must not waste this opportunity. What I really want is to watch 1990s television. Don’t do it. You know you want to. At the tap of my finger, the glass screen flickers, revealing an explosion, lifting flames high in the remote Wisconsin woods. Minutes later a deputy sheriff, first to arrive in the dense forest, approaches the fiery scene. He encounters a strange, invisible creature that scorches him to death. In rapid succession, the events hook me before the haunting theme song of “The X-Files” and its monster-of-the-week storytelling transports me into hazy nostalgia. I swallow it like a pill. * * * On a breezy fall afternoon a few months later, during a visit to Whole Foods, we strike the samples. I navigate the aisles with Henry wrapped to my chest, maximizing our sampling potential. The organic apples, tomatoes and squash sparkle in the florescent light. A blender buzzes in the corner. I pick up a black cherry, bite it in half, and lower it to his mouth like a mother bird. This moment ignites a genial surge in my heart, a memory I pledge to preserve, a memory I would not have expected a year ago. We share pineapple, fancy cheese, tortilla chips, bite-size pizza, and hummus. Despite knowing Whole Foods does not align with our budget, we eat a shameful amount. At any moment, I am certain a manager will ask us to leave. If so, it will be worth it. As fall turns to winter and light fades to dark early in the evening, mysterious bites appear on our legs and arms. The exterminator examines the Ziploc bag containing the reddish-brown, oval parasites that crawled underneath a shared wall. He instructs us to vacate the apartment for several hours. After returning home, Cara bounces Henry to sleep in the bedroom. The gas heat fails to keep up with single-digit temperatures. The Chicago winter, winds whipping and snow accumulating, shoves life indoors. Slowly, our one-bedroom apartment transforms into a cell, difficult to leave after dusk. I withdraw to the bathtub. My iPad provides enough light to turn on the tub faucet and raise the water temperature. A bead of sweat forms on my forehead and rolls down the side of my face into the bathwater, while Fox Mulder, eccentric FBI agent and unexplained phenomena expert, enters the moonlit woods, racing to gather evidence from a crash site. While a strange, invisible creature lurks in the remote woods, escaping government officials, Mulder finds himself captured in a makeshift military jail. Dana Scully, Mulder’s straight-laced and skeptical partner, arrives to free him. She scoffs at his far-fetched explanation; he is frustrated with her naivety, but due to his confiscated camera there is no evidence to present her. Once again, the truth brushes against Mulder like a strange creature in the water before slipping away. Here is my truth: I am scared. I do not know how I am going to make it through the winter. I feel isolated. Beyond caring for my son, I have no energy or presence to offer the world. I want to write, but a numb brain struggles to shift into gear. I want to enjoy the winter wonderland, but only see tundra. * * * In the depths of winter, I sit on a frigid toilet at three o’clock in the morning, one eye open, too tired to stand. Unable to sleep, I grab the flashlight to inspect my son’s crib for bedbugs. I scan the light over his tiny, perfect feet. No bugs. Next, I turn to our bed where my wife lightly snores. I wave the light over the mattress. No bugs. I inspect the box springs and frame. A reddish-brown speck is wedged in a corner crease. I spread the crease. The speck crawls. I grab it with a tissue and drop it in a sandwich-size bag. I lie on the couch, resigned to the reality of bedbugs. Resigned to my isolated existence. Thoughts of failure spin in my mind. I am failing to keep bugs from biting my wife and son in the night. I am failing to provide for my family. I am failing to keep them from breathing secondhand smoke in our bedroom. The old tapes, ingrained in my brain from a hyper-masculine upbringing, play over and over in my mind. At six o’clock in the morning, the State of the Union address delivered on the previous night plays on my iPhone. President Obama’s words fill the kitchen. I disassemble the coffee grinder, remove the stale grounds, and wipe it clean with a small brush. Steam raises the lid off the silver kettle on the stovetop; water spews from the narrow, s-shaped spout. Henry, on my hip, waves at the hissing kettle. I remove it from the stove eye. I tare the scale. I grind the beans until they are reduced to a sand-like texture. I pull the tray from the grinder and breathe the freshly ground beans. Henry leans his face over the tray and pretends to take a deep breath. His blue eyes widen. A burst of applause comes through the iPhone speaker. I pour steaming water over grounds, which rest in a red, ceramic funnel on top of a glass pot. I pour enough to saturate them, causing the water and grounds to dance together, creating a mushroom-shaped bubble that collapses after thirty seconds, the signal for more water. I pour four hundred grams of water in a slow, circular motion; rich, brown liquid drips into the pot. My ears tune to the President’s words. “Today, we’re the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers. Forty-three million workers have no paid sick leave. Forty-three million. Think about that. And that forces too many parents to make the gut-wrenching choice between a paycheck and a sick kid at home.” I recall a meeting before Henry’s birth. Responding to my request for paternity leave, my employer slides a thin piece of paper across the table, full of language resembling a legal contract. While reading the mechanical response, I shake my head at the decision to deny my request for two weeks of paid family leave. After three years, it is clear they do not value me, much less my pregnant wife; nor do they want to offer support when we need it most — hundreds of miles from our family and support network. The coffee finishes dripping. I pour a steaming cup into a porcelain mug. Henry fidgets as the steam rises. In the living room, while I sip my java, Henry rolls on the foam mat. Sharing five hundred square feet with a nearly one-year-old cellmate is like living inside a pinball machine. Henry bounces off the changing table, couch, kitchen cabinets, bookshelves, and television stand. In the afternoon, we shift to the hallway; he crawls and knocks on random doors, while our thick-haired Sheltie dutifully follows. Together, we inspect doormats and plug-in deodorizers; we ride the elevator. To escape, in the middle of winter with several feet of snow piling on the ground, we scurry to Super Foods, a corner grocery below our apartment. A gust of wind burns my cheeks, forcing Henry to tuck his head in my chest. He whimpers. Upon entering the store, Henry emerges with two brown ears and limbs swallowed by the fleece bear outfit my mother mailed from Tennessee. He trades smiles with the cashiers and the owner, an elderly Eastern European man who mesmerizes Henry with his accent. Henry and I squeeze past a line of customers wrapped in long winter coats and waiting to purchase lottery tickets. We plod across the cereal aisle examining box covers, spending several minutes admiring Toucan Sam and Lucky the Leprechaun. We land in the produce section. I quiz Henry. I hold potatoes, grapes, pineapples, broccoli and bananas in front of his face. “Ba-na-nas.” The corners on his face rise. “Ba-na-nas.” His lips open revealing his jagged teeth. “Ba-na-nas.” He giggles. At the cash register, I purchase a bunch of bananas to justify the trip. The elderly Eastern European man amuses Henry with facial expressions. After their exchange, I hustle back to our fifth-floor cell, leaning into the face-numbing wind, holding a bear and bananas. In the apartment, I sit Henry on the kitchen floor, place the bananas in the fruit basket, and remove our heavy clothing. I open the refrigerator door, grab the water pitcher and pour a glass. Henry crawls to the colorful containers resting on the wire shelving, while I slide to the floor and lean against the faux-wood kitchen cabinets and extend my legs into a V shape. The tile deadens the muscles in my ass. My sweatpants reveal stains ranging from coffee to breast milk to blueberry yogurt. Artificial light beams from the refrigerator, while the brutal wind whips against the windows of our apartment. Henry’s rounded legs squat to lower clanking salad dressing bottles to the floor. My neighbor’s door slams, echoing in the hallway. I doubt you will find refrigerator entertainment as a technique in a legitimate parenting manual, but it’s the only trick left in my bag. Henry hands me a head of broccoli and wobbles back toward the manufactured light. Leftovers from breakfast burritos fill my nostrils. In a bottom drawer, he discovers a bag of grapes, removes one, and turns towards me, grinning; he holds the grape at eye level as if turning a precious stone in the light. I force the tired muscles in my face into a half-smile. “Sharing five hundred square feet with a nearly one-year-old cellmate is like living inside a pinball machine.”I glance at my iPhone’s display. My wife will not arrive home for another three hours. I am a shell of myself, beat down by a blue-eyed creature barely weighing twenty pounds. I do not know how to raise myself from the tile floor. I have the physical strength, but emotionally I am unable. I sit. Henry explores the refrigerator. I question my fitness to care for him. I don’t know why I thought I could do this by myself. Naivety. Delusion. Immaturity. I don’t know, nor do I understand how I got lowered to this tile floor. * * * On a Saturday morning a few days later, I walk Jolene along the shore. The edges of the dim, grey horizon blend with sheets of ice on Lake Michigan. Crisp air blows off the ice, drying my eyes. Layers extend from the shore beginning with several feet of snow resting on solid ice, which alters to floating ice chunks packed together, bumping into thin sheets expanding to the skyline. My butt rests on an ice block posing as a bench near the sidewalk that wraps around the water. I have not smelled anything since the exhaust I inhaled crossing Lakeshore Drive. My dog’s breath steams out of her nose. I imagine the creatures beneath the coated lake, the freezing water driving them to the depths. Their movement limited. Their existence pressed downward. Down to the muddy bottom. I do not remember the last time happiness surfaced and shattered the expanding sheets over my heart. My emotions do not move; they dive to the recesses of my heart. I want someone to launch a large, jagged rock on to the frozen surface. I want someone to shatter the layers, create a hole large enough for my feelings to rise. A gaping hole, so big, the person I once knew emerges from the dim waters. I will hand a rock to anyone willing to hurl it. I cannot do it myself. * * * Cara and I sit on the grey IKEA couch. I stare at tropical images shuffling on the flat-screen television. Henry sleeps in the bedroom. The red line train hums northward, while a man digging in a dumpster sings in the alley. Cara’s large green eyes scan our family budget on the laptop. Her shoulders sag and brow furrows. “Here are three options,” I say. “First, we stay in Chicago, but I will need to get a full-time job and Henry will go to childcare. Second, we stay in Chicago, but I will need to get a flexible part-time job, continue caring for Henry, and we will squeak by financially. Third, we move to Tennessee and get closer to family and our support network.” Cara studies the grim budget. She tends to be decisive. I debate, waver, and second-guess. “We need to move to Tennessee,” she responds. “We can stay here but we will need to…” “No, we need to move. Life in Chicago with a child is not sustainable,” she says. We sit on the couch. The decision made itself and provides relief despite being laced with failure. We will return seeking balance after our world was turned upside down, seeking to recover from the shock of parenthood. The grueling routine of childcare will remain, but we hope a wider circle of support will ease the burden. We will move forward not on our terms, but on Henry’s. At the end of spring, we pack boxes and a handful of friends load our belongings on a rental truck. We abandon our couch and bed in the alley to avoid transporting bedbugs. On a Sunday morning, Cara and Henry board a flight to Nashville, while I stack the final boxes in the truck, pressing them inward with my shoulder as I pull the door down and secure the latch. I step into the cab, start the engine, and roll away from our apartment building. Our time in Chicago fades as life shoves us forward. I merge on to Lake Shore Drive. The road winds southward along the shore to exit the city. People walk the beach and bounce volleyballs and toss Frisbees. I imagine the creatures below the surface, no longer coated with ice, and wonder what life stirs. For the next seven hours, I will sit alone in the truck wondering what life stirs within myself. Wondering if my soul will thaw. Wondering if my true self will return.
I bounce Henry on my shoulder at two o’clock in the morning. He moans and raises his head to survey the dark living room. He stares over my shoulder, eyes wide open, examining the shadows. Breast milk soaks my t-shirt, along with drool created by tiny, jagged teeth piercing his gums. I push his head back down with my palm, but he resists and releases a defiant scream. I bounce. I bargain with myself. I would donate a kidney for a full night’s rest. I would empty my checking account for a nap. I would never eat again at Five Guys Burgers for a few moments to shut my eyes. More Narratively: "My Runaway Childhood" Outside, the red line train hums at its stop near our fifth-floor apartment. My foggy brain registers the conductor’s muffled voice echoing from the speaker. Chicago stills during the early morning hours, but our living room remains active; a street light glimmers between the blinds. I bounce. Henry’s hot breath rushes from his lungs. The train departs, humming northbound into the night. More from Narratively: "The Night My Parents Had me Kidnapped" I lower us to a multicolored-foam play mat and lie flat on my back. Henry leans on my chest like a professional wrestler pinning his opponent. I close my eyes. The toilet flushes in the apartment next door, my neighbor ridding herself of another cigarette butt. While Henry listens to the rushing water, I consider my options: toss him out the window or ask my wife for help. However, neither of these options are included in the deal. I am on the clock, so I must remain conscious, battling an opponent with a delicious scalp and wonderfully chubby legs. Wandering through my hazy mind, I attempt to remember why I signed up for this job. More from Narratively: "I Can't Die Before My Son" While staring at the ceiling, my mind focuses on choices made after Henry’s birth. I embraced visions of myself as a hip, progressive father — a modern dad unburdened by rigid, traditional views of fatherhood, a man not forced to divide the roles of provider and protector from nurturer and caregiver. At the end of spring, I resigned from a soul-sucking job to care for Henry, four months old, while Cara returned to work at a non-profit in the heart of the city. We desired to leave behind suburban life and a lengthy commute, well suited for many families, but stressful and impossible in our particular situation. We moved into a one-bedroom apartment on the north side of Chicago, near Lake Michigan, a promising place to stroll along the shore. * * * On a balmy summer morning, a week later, I walk the streets of Chicago carrying Henry in a long, green band of cloth wrapped around my torso. He flails his arms and kicks his legs against my waist, studying passersby. We absorb the light reflecting off Lake Michigan’s choppy surface while walking Jolene, our thirty-pound sheltie mix. “Did you tie the wrap?” women ask. “Yes, I watched the YouTube instructional video a thousand times,” I respond. The soft wrap becomes a projection screen on which others display their parenting views. Women offer warm smiles, sometimes clapping. Men stare, dressed in their sleek suits, with furrowed brows. A teenage boy, arms hooked with his girlfriend, whispers loud enough for me to overhear, “Now, that’s the image of a man.” Another scruffy, bearded man in his twenties, standing on a busy street corner, points and roars. The neighborhood policeman leaning against the wall of the 7-11 informs me, “The first time I saw you wearing this thing, I thought you were Middle Eastern.” It is an odd thing to hear said to a pale, blue-eyed male with a Southern accent. The wrap and I become one. I wear Henry to prepare dinner. I wear him on the subway. I wear him to the DMV. In line, a young woman with fashionable short hair approaches me to discuss the wrap. For ten minutes, she tells me about her experience with the wrap and how she proudly avoided a stroller. She speaks like we are members of a special baby-wearing club. Before moving on, she nods as if we are part of a movement. I nod back. At the Art Institute of Chicago, six months old and wrapped against my chest, Henry studies the museum visitors nearby, resting fingers on their chins. Contemplating Picasso’s Mother and Child, I absorb the rich grey, brown and flesh tones, amplified by the neutral white wall. I recognize the mother’s gaze. I saw it on my own face in a photograph taken on the day my son was born. The mother tilts her head downward and stares into the eyes of the infant anchored in her lap. She resembles a classical sculpture more than a living person. Her large, rounded features provide a haven; her tender eyes underpin the playful baby, holding his foot. The mother’s gaze shines a light into the recesses of my heart, into a part of myself I was conditioned to hide. Her tethered soul sends blood rushing through my chest. I learn that Picasso, in the early stages of the painting, included a father next to the mother and child — a father who stood over the boy, dangling a fish; a father who disappeared; a father covered with layers of paint as if he never existed. The warmth in my chest fades. I cannot offer a precise definition of a father, because there are as many types of fathers as creatures in Lake Michigan. I consider that many children equate fathers with absence. Fathers absent by choice or from circumstances beyond their control. Fathers not known and children reaching for their ghosts. * * * “How was the day?” Cara asks. “We survived,” I mumble. Henry drops his bottle and lunges from my lap to crawl towards his mother. Cara sets her work bag on the table and embraces him, their faces gleaming. I sit down on the gray IKEA couch to regroup and brainstorm dinner plans. The odor from a diaper explosion lingers in the trashcan and our one-bedroom apartment appears to have been ransacked by thieves. The floor is a minefield of Cheerios, wooden blocks, and teether toys. During the bedtime routine, I retreat to the bathroom, a closet-sized, windowless space. While the fiberglass tub slowly fills with hot water, I shut the door and turn off the lights. Pipes whistle in the walls, guiding water to rooms throughout the building. Stale cigarette smoke creeps through the vents courtesy of my chain-smoking neighbor. As I lie down, ripples splash against the tub and back against the sides of my body in the pitch-black room. For a few minutes, I close my eyes as the water stills. When motivation arrives, I reach outside the tub for the iPad planted on the floor nearby, and rest it securely on my chest. The screen flashes large, red block letters on an inky background. An endless menu appears, offering an escape. My scrolling index finger struggles to decide what to select. I should watch an award-winning foreign film. I should watch a documentary. I should watch a TED talk. I must not waste this opportunity. What I really want is to watch 1990s television. Don’t do it. You know you want to. At the tap of my finger, the glass screen flickers, revealing an explosion, lifting flames high in the remote Wisconsin woods. Minutes later a deputy sheriff, first to arrive in the dense forest, approaches the fiery scene. He encounters a strange, invisible creature that scorches him to death. In rapid succession, the events hook me before the haunting theme song of “The X-Files” and its monster-of-the-week storytelling transports me into hazy nostalgia. I swallow it like a pill. * * * On a breezy fall afternoon a few months later, during a visit to Whole Foods, we strike the samples. I navigate the aisles with Henry wrapped to my chest, maximizing our sampling potential. The organic apples, tomatoes and squash sparkle in the florescent light. A blender buzzes in the corner. I pick up a black cherry, bite it in half, and lower it to his mouth like a mother bird. This moment ignites a genial surge in my heart, a memory I pledge to preserve, a memory I would not have expected a year ago. We share pineapple, fancy cheese, tortilla chips, bite-size pizza, and hummus. Despite knowing Whole Foods does not align with our budget, we eat a shameful amount. At any moment, I am certain a manager will ask us to leave. If so, it will be worth it. As fall turns to winter and light fades to dark early in the evening, mysterious bites appear on our legs and arms. The exterminator examines the Ziploc bag containing the reddish-brown, oval parasites that crawled underneath a shared wall. He instructs us to vacate the apartment for several hours. After returning home, Cara bounces Henry to sleep in the bedroom. The gas heat fails to keep up with single-digit temperatures. The Chicago winter, winds whipping and snow accumulating, shoves life indoors. Slowly, our one-bedroom apartment transforms into a cell, difficult to leave after dusk. I withdraw to the bathtub. My iPad provides enough light to turn on the tub faucet and raise the water temperature. A bead of sweat forms on my forehead and rolls down the side of my face into the bathwater, while Fox Mulder, eccentric FBI agent and unexplained phenomena expert, enters the moonlit woods, racing to gather evidence from a crash site. While a strange, invisible creature lurks in the remote woods, escaping government officials, Mulder finds himself captured in a makeshift military jail. Dana Scully, Mulder’s straight-laced and skeptical partner, arrives to free him. She scoffs at his far-fetched explanation; he is frustrated with her naivety, but due to his confiscated camera there is no evidence to present her. Once again, the truth brushes against Mulder like a strange creature in the water before slipping away. Here is my truth: I am scared. I do not know how I am going to make it through the winter. I feel isolated. Beyond caring for my son, I have no energy or presence to offer the world. I want to write, but a numb brain struggles to shift into gear. I want to enjoy the winter wonderland, but only see tundra. * * * In the depths of winter, I sit on a frigid toilet at three o’clock in the morning, one eye open, too tired to stand. Unable to sleep, I grab the flashlight to inspect my son’s crib for bedbugs. I scan the light over his tiny, perfect feet. No bugs. Next, I turn to our bed where my wife lightly snores. I wave the light over the mattress. No bugs. I inspect the box springs and frame. A reddish-brown speck is wedged in a corner crease. I spread the crease. The speck crawls. I grab it with a tissue and drop it in a sandwich-size bag. I lie on the couch, resigned to the reality of bedbugs. Resigned to my isolated existence. Thoughts of failure spin in my mind. I am failing to keep bugs from biting my wife and son in the night. I am failing to provide for my family. I am failing to keep them from breathing secondhand smoke in our bedroom. The old tapes, ingrained in my brain from a hyper-masculine upbringing, play over and over in my mind. At six o’clock in the morning, the State of the Union address delivered on the previous night plays on my iPhone. President Obama’s words fill the kitchen. I disassemble the coffee grinder, remove the stale grounds, and wipe it clean with a small brush. Steam raises the lid off the silver kettle on the stovetop; water spews from the narrow, s-shaped spout. Henry, on my hip, waves at the hissing kettle. I remove it from the stove eye. I tare the scale. I grind the beans until they are reduced to a sand-like texture. I pull the tray from the grinder and breathe the freshly ground beans. Henry leans his face over the tray and pretends to take a deep breath. His blue eyes widen. A burst of applause comes through the iPhone speaker. I pour steaming water over grounds, which rest in a red, ceramic funnel on top of a glass pot. I pour enough to saturate them, causing the water and grounds to dance together, creating a mushroom-shaped bubble that collapses after thirty seconds, the signal for more water. I pour four hundred grams of water in a slow, circular motion; rich, brown liquid drips into the pot. My ears tune to the President’s words. “Today, we’re the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers. Forty-three million workers have no paid sick leave. Forty-three million. Think about that. And that forces too many parents to make the gut-wrenching choice between a paycheck and a sick kid at home.” I recall a meeting before Henry’s birth. Responding to my request for paternity leave, my employer slides a thin piece of paper across the table, full of language resembling a legal contract. While reading the mechanical response, I shake my head at the decision to deny my request for two weeks of paid family leave. After three years, it is clear they do not value me, much less my pregnant wife; nor do they want to offer support when we need it most — hundreds of miles from our family and support network. The coffee finishes dripping. I pour a steaming cup into a porcelain mug. Henry fidgets as the steam rises. In the living room, while I sip my java, Henry rolls on the foam mat. Sharing five hundred square feet with a nearly one-year-old cellmate is like living inside a pinball machine. Henry bounces off the changing table, couch, kitchen cabinets, bookshelves, and television stand. In the afternoon, we shift to the hallway; he crawls and knocks on random doors, while our thick-haired Sheltie dutifully follows. Together, we inspect doormats and plug-in deodorizers; we ride the elevator. To escape, in the middle of winter with several feet of snow piling on the ground, we scurry to Super Foods, a corner grocery below our apartment. A gust of wind burns my cheeks, forcing Henry to tuck his head in my chest. He whimpers. Upon entering the store, Henry emerges with two brown ears and limbs swallowed by the fleece bear outfit my mother mailed from Tennessee. He trades smiles with the cashiers and the owner, an elderly Eastern European man who mesmerizes Henry with his accent. Henry and I squeeze past a line of customers wrapped in long winter coats and waiting to purchase lottery tickets. We plod across the cereal aisle examining box covers, spending several minutes admiring Toucan Sam and Lucky the Leprechaun. We land in the produce section. I quiz Henry. I hold potatoes, grapes, pineapples, broccoli and bananas in front of his face. “Ba-na-nas.” The corners on his face rise. “Ba-na-nas.” His lips open revealing his jagged teeth. “Ba-na-nas.” He giggles. At the cash register, I purchase a bunch of bananas to justify the trip. The elderly Eastern European man amuses Henry with facial expressions. After their exchange, I hustle back to our fifth-floor cell, leaning into the face-numbing wind, holding a bear and bananas. In the apartment, I sit Henry on the kitchen floor, place the bananas in the fruit basket, and remove our heavy clothing. I open the refrigerator door, grab the water pitcher and pour a glass. Henry crawls to the colorful containers resting on the wire shelving, while I slide to the floor and lean against the faux-wood kitchen cabinets and extend my legs into a V shape. The tile deadens the muscles in my ass. My sweatpants reveal stains ranging from coffee to breast milk to blueberry yogurt. Artificial light beams from the refrigerator, while the brutal wind whips against the windows of our apartment. Henry’s rounded legs squat to lower clanking salad dressing bottles to the floor. My neighbor’s door slams, echoing in the hallway. I doubt you will find refrigerator entertainment as a technique in a legitimate parenting manual, but it’s the only trick left in my bag. Henry hands me a head of broccoli and wobbles back toward the manufactured light. Leftovers from breakfast burritos fill my nostrils. In a bottom drawer, he discovers a bag of grapes, removes one, and turns towards me, grinning; he holds the grape at eye level as if turning a precious stone in the light. I force the tired muscles in my face into a half-smile. “Sharing five hundred square feet with a nearly one-year-old cellmate is like living inside a pinball machine.”I glance at my iPhone’s display. My wife will not arrive home for another three hours. I am a shell of myself, beat down by a blue-eyed creature barely weighing twenty pounds. I do not know how to raise myself from the tile floor. I have the physical strength, but emotionally I am unable. I sit. Henry explores the refrigerator. I question my fitness to care for him. I don’t know why I thought I could do this by myself. Naivety. Delusion. Immaturity. I don’t know, nor do I understand how I got lowered to this tile floor. * * * On a Saturday morning a few days later, I walk Jolene along the shore. The edges of the dim, grey horizon blend with sheets of ice on Lake Michigan. Crisp air blows off the ice, drying my eyes. Layers extend from the shore beginning with several feet of snow resting on solid ice, which alters to floating ice chunks packed together, bumping into thin sheets expanding to the skyline. My butt rests on an ice block posing as a bench near the sidewalk that wraps around the water. I have not smelled anything since the exhaust I inhaled crossing Lakeshore Drive. My dog’s breath steams out of her nose. I imagine the creatures beneath the coated lake, the freezing water driving them to the depths. Their movement limited. Their existence pressed downward. Down to the muddy bottom. I do not remember the last time happiness surfaced and shattered the expanding sheets over my heart. My emotions do not move; they dive to the recesses of my heart. I want someone to launch a large, jagged rock on to the frozen surface. I want someone to shatter the layers, create a hole large enough for my feelings to rise. A gaping hole, so big, the person I once knew emerges from the dim waters. I will hand a rock to anyone willing to hurl it. I cannot do it myself. * * * Cara and I sit on the grey IKEA couch. I stare at tropical images shuffling on the flat-screen television. Henry sleeps in the bedroom. The red line train hums northward, while a man digging in a dumpster sings in the alley. Cara’s large green eyes scan our family budget on the laptop. Her shoulders sag and brow furrows. “Here are three options,” I say. “First, we stay in Chicago, but I will need to get a full-time job and Henry will go to childcare. Second, we stay in Chicago, but I will need to get a flexible part-time job, continue caring for Henry, and we will squeak by financially. Third, we move to Tennessee and get closer to family and our support network.” Cara studies the grim budget. She tends to be decisive. I debate, waver, and second-guess. “We need to move to Tennessee,” she responds. “We can stay here but we will need to…” “No, we need to move. Life in Chicago with a child is not sustainable,” she says. We sit on the couch. The decision made itself and provides relief despite being laced with failure. We will return seeking balance after our world was turned upside down, seeking to recover from the shock of parenthood. The grueling routine of childcare will remain, but we hope a wider circle of support will ease the burden. We will move forward not on our terms, but on Henry’s. At the end of spring, we pack boxes and a handful of friends load our belongings on a rental truck. We abandon our couch and bed in the alley to avoid transporting bedbugs. On a Sunday morning, Cara and Henry board a flight to Nashville, while I stack the final boxes in the truck, pressing them inward with my shoulder as I pull the door down and secure the latch. I step into the cab, start the engine, and roll away from our apartment building. Our time in Chicago fades as life shoves us forward. I merge on to Lake Shore Drive. The road winds southward along the shore to exit the city. People walk the beach and bounce volleyballs and toss Frisbees. I imagine the creatures below the surface, no longer coated with ice, and wonder what life stirs. For the next seven hours, I will sit alone in the truck wondering what life stirs within myself. Wondering if my soul will thaw. Wondering if my true self will return.
The best antihero now isn’t a badass: “Better Call Saul” is the brilliant, pathetic counterpart to prestige TV’s bold angry men
The breathtaking human toll of environmental pollution
We all know that pollution is bad for our health. Just how bad was laid out by the World Health Organization this week in a bleak new report on environmentally related deaths.
New analysis of data from 2012 found that a staggering 12.6 million people died that year from living and working in toxic environments.
That’s almost equivalent to the combined populations of New York City and Los Angeles, and represents nearly a quarter of the 55.6 million deaths recorded that year.
That’s scary, but it gets worse.
World Health Organization
The number of deaths due to noncommunicable diseases, such as stroke, heart disease, cancer and respiratory illness, made up 8.2 million or nearly two-thirds of the deaths resulting from unhealthy environments. The WHO says these deaths were mostly caused by air pollution.
These are preventable deaths, the WHO reminds us.
“A healthy environment underpins a healthy population,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in a statement. “If countries do not take actions to make environments where people live and work healthy, millions will continue to become ill and die too young.”
Low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific Region, where rapid economic growth has been blamed for soaring levels of air, water and soil contamination, were the worst affected by environmental-related deaths. Those regions had an estimated death toll of 7.3 million, mostly as a result of indoor and outdoor air pollution.
World Health Organization
The very young and the very old were the most vulnerable members of the global population: 1.7 million children under the age of 5 and 4.9 million adults aged between 50 and 75 years old lost their lives because of environmental factors.
Fortunately, there were some bright spots in the report.
The total number of deaths worldwide in 2012 fell by 1.4 million over the preceding decade as the number of deaths attributable to the environment decreased from 13.3 million to 12.6 million.
Deaths from infectious, parasitic and nutritional diseases, such as malaria and diarrhea, also fell due to more people having access to safe water and sanitation and because a smaller share of households used solid fuels, such as coal, for cooking. The category accounted for 20 percent of deaths attributable to the environment in 2012, compared with 31 percent a decade earlier.
(At the same time, though, deaths from noncommunicable diseases trended upwards to 22 percent of environmental-related deaths in 2012 from 17 percent in 2002.)
Another bit of good news was the action being taken by many cities around the world to clean up the environment.
The WHO highlighted the example of the Brazilian city of Curitiba, where authorities are investing heavily in slum improvements, waste recycling, public transport and pedestrian walkways to encourage people to walk and cycle more.
“Despite a five-fold population increase in the past 50 years, air pollution levels are comparatively lower than in many other rapidly growing cities and life expectancy is two years longer than the national average,” the WHO said.
That’s a good start, but a lot more needs to be done.
We all know that pollution is bad for our health. Just how bad was laid out by the World Health Organization this week in a bleak new report on environmentally related deaths.
New analysis of data from 2012 found that a staggering 12.6 million people died that year from living and working in toxic environments.
That’s almost equivalent to the combined populations of New York City and Los Angeles, and represents nearly a quarter of the 55.6 million deaths recorded that year.
That’s scary, but it gets worse.
World Health Organization
The number of deaths due to noncommunicable diseases, such as stroke, heart disease, cancer and respiratory illness, made up 8.2 million or nearly two-thirds of the deaths resulting from unhealthy environments. The WHO says these deaths were mostly caused by air pollution.
These are preventable deaths, the WHO reminds us.
“A healthy environment underpins a healthy population,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in a statement. “If countries do not take actions to make environments where people live and work healthy, millions will continue to become ill and die too young.”
Low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific Region, where rapid economic growth has been blamed for soaring levels of air, water and soil contamination, were the worst affected by environmental-related deaths. Those regions had an estimated death toll of 7.3 million, mostly as a result of indoor and outdoor air pollution.
World Health Organization
The very young and the very old were the most vulnerable members of the global population: 1.7 million children under the age of 5 and 4.9 million adults aged between 50 and 75 years old lost their lives because of environmental factors.
Fortunately, there were some bright spots in the report.
The total number of deaths worldwide in 2012 fell by 1.4 million over the preceding decade as the number of deaths attributable to the environment decreased from 13.3 million to 12.6 million.
Deaths from infectious, parasitic and nutritional diseases, such as malaria and diarrhea, also fell due to more people having access to safe water and sanitation and because a smaller share of households used solid fuels, such as coal, for cooking. The category accounted for 20 percent of deaths attributable to the environment in 2012, compared with 31 percent a decade earlier.
(At the same time, though, deaths from noncommunicable diseases trended upwards to 22 percent of environmental-related deaths in 2012 from 17 percent in 2002.)
Another bit of good news was the action being taken by many cities around the world to clean up the environment.
The WHO highlighted the example of the Brazilian city of Curitiba, where authorities are investing heavily in slum improvements, waste recycling, public transport and pedestrian walkways to encourage people to walk and cycle more.
“Despite a five-fold population increase in the past 50 years, air pollution levels are comparatively lower than in many other rapidly growing cities and life expectancy is two years longer than the national average,” the WHO said.
That’s a good start, but a lot more needs to be done.
We all know that pollution is bad for our health. Just how bad was laid out by the World Health Organization this week in a bleak new report on environmentally related deaths.
New analysis of data from 2012 found that a staggering 12.6 million people died that year from living and working in toxic environments.
That’s almost equivalent to the combined populations of New York City and Los Angeles, and represents nearly a quarter of the 55.6 million deaths recorded that year.
That’s scary, but it gets worse.
World Health Organization
The number of deaths due to noncommunicable diseases, such as stroke, heart disease, cancer and respiratory illness, made up 8.2 million or nearly two-thirds of the deaths resulting from unhealthy environments. The WHO says these deaths were mostly caused by air pollution.
These are preventable deaths, the WHO reminds us.
“A healthy environment underpins a healthy population,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in a statement. “If countries do not take actions to make environments where people live and work healthy, millions will continue to become ill and die too young.”
Low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific Region, where rapid economic growth has been blamed for soaring levels of air, water and soil contamination, were the worst affected by environmental-related deaths. Those regions had an estimated death toll of 7.3 million, mostly as a result of indoor and outdoor air pollution.
World Health Organization
The very young and the very old were the most vulnerable members of the global population: 1.7 million children under the age of 5 and 4.9 million adults aged between 50 and 75 years old lost their lives because of environmental factors.
Fortunately, there were some bright spots in the report.
The total number of deaths worldwide in 2012 fell by 1.4 million over the preceding decade as the number of deaths attributable to the environment decreased from 13.3 million to 12.6 million.
Deaths from infectious, parasitic and nutritional diseases, such as malaria and diarrhea, also fell due to more people having access to safe water and sanitation and because a smaller share of households used solid fuels, such as coal, for cooking. The category accounted for 20 percent of deaths attributable to the environment in 2012, compared with 31 percent a decade earlier.
(At the same time, though, deaths from noncommunicable diseases trended upwards to 22 percent of environmental-related deaths in 2012 from 17 percent in 2002.)
Another bit of good news was the action being taken by many cities around the world to clean up the environment.
The WHO highlighted the example of the Brazilian city of Curitiba, where authorities are investing heavily in slum improvements, waste recycling, public transport and pedestrian walkways to encourage people to walk and cycle more.
“Despite a five-fold population increase in the past 50 years, air pollution levels are comparatively lower than in many other rapidly growing cities and life expectancy is two years longer than the national average,” the WHO said.
That’s a good start, but a lot more needs to be done.
We all know that pollution is bad for our health. Just how bad was laid out by the World Health Organization this week in a bleak new report on environmentally related deaths.
New analysis of data from 2012 found that a staggering 12.6 million people died that year from living and working in toxic environments.
That’s almost equivalent to the combined populations of New York City and Los Angeles, and represents nearly a quarter of the 55.6 million deaths recorded that year.
That’s scary, but it gets worse.
World Health Organization
The number of deaths due to noncommunicable diseases, such as stroke, heart disease, cancer and respiratory illness, made up 8.2 million or nearly two-thirds of the deaths resulting from unhealthy environments. The WHO says these deaths were mostly caused by air pollution.
These are preventable deaths, the WHO reminds us.
“A healthy environment underpins a healthy population,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in a statement. “If countries do not take actions to make environments where people live and work healthy, millions will continue to become ill and die too young.”
Low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific Region, where rapid economic growth has been blamed for soaring levels of air, water and soil contamination, were the worst affected by environmental-related deaths. Those regions had an estimated death toll of 7.3 million, mostly as a result of indoor and outdoor air pollution.
World Health Organization
The very young and the very old were the most vulnerable members of the global population: 1.7 million children under the age of 5 and 4.9 million adults aged between 50 and 75 years old lost their lives because of environmental factors.
Fortunately, there were some bright spots in the report.
The total number of deaths worldwide in 2012 fell by 1.4 million over the preceding decade as the number of deaths attributable to the environment decreased from 13.3 million to 12.6 million.
Deaths from infectious, parasitic and nutritional diseases, such as malaria and diarrhea, also fell due to more people having access to safe water and sanitation and because a smaller share of households used solid fuels, such as coal, for cooking. The category accounted for 20 percent of deaths attributable to the environment in 2012, compared with 31 percent a decade earlier.
(At the same time, though, deaths from noncommunicable diseases trended upwards to 22 percent of environmental-related deaths in 2012 from 17 percent in 2002.)
Another bit of good news was the action being taken by many cities around the world to clean up the environment.
The WHO highlighted the example of the Brazilian city of Curitiba, where authorities are investing heavily in slum improvements, waste recycling, public transport and pedestrian walkways to encourage people to walk and cycle more.
“Despite a five-fold population increase in the past 50 years, air pollution levels are comparatively lower than in many other rapidly growing cities and life expectancy is two years longer than the national average,” the WHO said.
That’s a good start, but a lot more needs to be done.
Fox News “brainwashed” so many dads: “People are being bamboozled on a massive scale”
Bernie never stood a chance: The game was always rigged for a Hillary win
Did you know that if a given political party already has an incumbent in a particular political post, it’s standard practice in the United States for a political party to prohibit its voter-list to be purchased by anyone who’s not an incumbent office-holder in that party — including by someone who wishes to challenge or contest within that party the incumbent, in a primary election? Only incumbents have access to that crucial list — crucial for any candidate in a primary election (unless there is no incumbent who is of that party). Here’s an example: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a long-time unquestioningly loyal operative of Hillary Clinton, was selected by the Democratic President Barack Obama (though she had condemned Obama while he was running against Clinton in 2008) to run the Democratic National Committee, so that Obama’s Administration will be continued with little change by his (chosen) successor (just a change of the President’s name, and only a bit more of a neo-conservative on her foreign policies than he was). However, Ms. DWS has a very low approval-rating from her constituents, and a Bernie Sanders supporter wants to contest against her in a Democratic primary. But, he says: Last week, I called the Florida Democratic Party to request access to the voter file database and software known as VAN that is routinely used by Democratic candidates across the country. I was told that our campaign would be denied access to this database because I am running against an incumbent Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I was also told that any Democratic candidate running against an incumbent Democrat would be denied access. A reader-comment there was: I’ve learned that this is standard practice in most states, to block challengers from the same party going up against incumbents. I think it’s bullshit. I’ve asked people to give me some good reasoning why this is a standard practice, and *crickets*. In other words: Politicians campaign hypocritically saying they favor ’term-limits’ but universally support the real reason (which isn’t the lack of term-limits; it’s the lack of fairness, such as this) why even the most vile incumbents get re-‘elected’ time and again: this thuggish custom of the Democratic and Republican political Parties, which blocks challengers from having access to the most crucial tool for becoming a Party’s nominee: the list of that Party’s registerd voters. Only the existing incumbent can buy that list. (Of course, if the ‘opposite’ Party has the incumbent in the contest, then the DNC/RNC will sell the person that list in order to yank the seat to their Party. The most-rigged part of American ‘democracy’ might be primary elections, not general elections — which is what politicians most discuss in public as being rigged, such as especially both of GWB’s Presidential ‘wins’, which were exceptionally scandalous.) Among the many ways in which the United States is not a democracy, the operation of primaries by Parties which actually represent their incumbents and not at all the public, is an important one. And the incumbent politicians never publicize it. Only a few aspiring challengers ‘complain’ about it — and the public never likes a 'complainer.' What this means is that, if an incumbent serves well the donors who financed his/her campaign, then that person will almost certainly not be effectively challenged in a primary by someone else from that party, because that prospective challenger won’t even have access to the list of registered voted in that party. The only significant chance that the incumbent will be replaced (unless he/she quits and, say, becomes a lobbyist for those donors) is if the ‘opposite’ party can find a suitable person to run against him/her (by serving donors to the ‘other’ party — which donors might also be donors to both parties). In other words: the political Establishment consists of the aristocracy and its servants — within both parties. Both parties serve the aristocrats, sometimes even the same aristocrats, but, in other matters, serve the agenda that’s shared among the richest people in both parties. The only scientific study that has been done of the net results from such a system was described and linked-to here. It found that in the U.S., the aristocracy rule; the public do not. And here is a recent former U.S. President saying that his own experience and analysis of the U.S. political system is in accord with those findings.
Did you know that if a given political party already has an incumbent in a particular political post, it’s standard practice in the United States for a political party to prohibit its voter-list to be purchased by anyone who’s not an incumbent office-holder in that party — including by someone who wishes to challenge or contest within that party the incumbent, in a primary election? Only incumbents have access to that crucial list — crucial for any candidate in a primary election (unless there is no incumbent who is of that party). Here’s an example: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a long-time unquestioningly loyal operative of Hillary Clinton, was selected by the Democratic President Barack Obama (though she had condemned Obama while he was running against Clinton in 2008) to run the Democratic National Committee, so that Obama’s Administration will be continued with little change by his (chosen) successor (just a change of the President’s name, and only a bit more of a neo-conservative on her foreign policies than he was). However, Ms. DWS has a very low approval-rating from her constituents, and a Bernie Sanders supporter wants to contest against her in a Democratic primary. But, he says: Last week, I called the Florida Democratic Party to request access to the voter file database and software known as VAN that is routinely used by Democratic candidates across the country. I was told that our campaign would be denied access to this database because I am running against an incumbent Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I was also told that any Democratic candidate running against an incumbent Democrat would be denied access. A reader-comment there was: I’ve learned that this is standard practice in most states, to block challengers from the same party going up against incumbents. I think it’s bullshit. I’ve asked people to give me some good reasoning why this is a standard practice, and *crickets*. In other words: Politicians campaign hypocritically saying they favor ’term-limits’ but universally support the real reason (which isn’t the lack of term-limits; it’s the lack of fairness, such as this) why even the most vile incumbents get re-‘elected’ time and again: this thuggish custom of the Democratic and Republican political Parties, which blocks challengers from having access to the most crucial tool for becoming a Party’s nominee: the list of that Party’s registerd voters. Only the existing incumbent can buy that list. (Of course, if the ‘opposite’ Party has the incumbent in the contest, then the DNC/RNC will sell the person that list in order to yank the seat to their Party. The most-rigged part of American ‘democracy’ might be primary elections, not general elections — which is what politicians most discuss in public as being rigged, such as especially both of GWB’s Presidential ‘wins’, which were exceptionally scandalous.) Among the many ways in which the United States is not a democracy, the operation of primaries by Parties which actually represent their incumbents and not at all the public, is an important one. And the incumbent politicians never publicize it. Only a few aspiring challengers ‘complain’ about it — and the public never likes a 'complainer.' What this means is that, if an incumbent serves well the donors who financed his/her campaign, then that person will almost certainly not be effectively challenged in a primary by someone else from that party, because that prospective challenger won’t even have access to the list of registered voted in that party. The only significant chance that the incumbent will be replaced (unless he/she quits and, say, becomes a lobbyist for those donors) is if the ‘opposite’ party can find a suitable person to run against him/her (by serving donors to the ‘other’ party — which donors might also be donors to both parties). In other words: the political Establishment consists of the aristocracy and its servants — within both parties. Both parties serve the aristocrats, sometimes even the same aristocrats, but, in other matters, serve the agenda that’s shared among the richest people in both parties. The only scientific study that has been done of the net results from such a system was described and linked-to here. It found that in the U.S., the aristocracy rule; the public do not. And here is a recent former U.S. President saying that his own experience and analysis of the U.S. political system is in accord with those findings.
Did you know that if a given political party already has an incumbent in a particular political post, it’s standard practice in the United States for a political party to prohibit its voter-list to be purchased by anyone who’s not an incumbent office-holder in that party — including by someone who wishes to challenge or contest within that party the incumbent, in a primary election? Only incumbents have access to that crucial list — crucial for any candidate in a primary election (unless there is no incumbent who is of that party). Here’s an example: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a long-time unquestioningly loyal operative of Hillary Clinton, was selected by the Democratic President Barack Obama (though she had condemned Obama while he was running against Clinton in 2008) to run the Democratic National Committee, so that Obama’s Administration will be continued with little change by his (chosen) successor (just a change of the President’s name, and only a bit more of a neo-conservative on her foreign policies than he was). However, Ms. DWS has a very low approval-rating from her constituents, and a Bernie Sanders supporter wants to contest against her in a Democratic primary. But, he says: Last week, I called the Florida Democratic Party to request access to the voter file database and software known as VAN that is routinely used by Democratic candidates across the country. I was told that our campaign would be denied access to this database because I am running against an incumbent Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I was also told that any Democratic candidate running against an incumbent Democrat would be denied access. A reader-comment there was: I’ve learned that this is standard practice in most states, to block challengers from the same party going up against incumbents. I think it’s bullshit. I’ve asked people to give me some good reasoning why this is a standard practice, and *crickets*. In other words: Politicians campaign hypocritically saying they favor ’term-limits’ but universally support the real reason (which isn’t the lack of term-limits; it’s the lack of fairness, such as this) why even the most vile incumbents get re-‘elected’ time and again: this thuggish custom of the Democratic and Republican political Parties, which blocks challengers from having access to the most crucial tool for becoming a Party’s nominee: the list of that Party’s registerd voters. Only the existing incumbent can buy that list. (Of course, if the ‘opposite’ Party has the incumbent in the contest, then the DNC/RNC will sell the person that list in order to yank the seat to their Party. The most-rigged part of American ‘democracy’ might be primary elections, not general elections — which is what politicians most discuss in public as being rigged, such as especially both of GWB’s Presidential ‘wins’, which were exceptionally scandalous.) Among the many ways in which the United States is not a democracy, the operation of primaries by Parties which actually represent their incumbents and not at all the public, is an important one. And the incumbent politicians never publicize it. Only a few aspiring challengers ‘complain’ about it — and the public never likes a 'complainer.' What this means is that, if an incumbent serves well the donors who financed his/her campaign, then that person will almost certainly not be effectively challenged in a primary by someone else from that party, because that prospective challenger won’t even have access to the list of registered voted in that party. The only significant chance that the incumbent will be replaced (unless he/she quits and, say, becomes a lobbyist for those donors) is if the ‘opposite’ party can find a suitable person to run against him/her (by serving donors to the ‘other’ party — which donors might also be donors to both parties). In other words: the political Establishment consists of the aristocracy and its servants — within both parties. Both parties serve the aristocrats, sometimes even the same aristocrats, but, in other matters, serve the agenda that’s shared among the richest people in both parties. The only scientific study that has been done of the net results from such a system was described and linked-to here. It found that in the U.S., the aristocracy rule; the public do not. And here is a recent former U.S. President saying that his own experience and analysis of the U.S. political system is in accord with those findings.
Did you know that if a given political party already has an incumbent in a particular political post, it’s standard practice in the United States for a political party to prohibit its voter-list to be purchased by anyone who’s not an incumbent office-holder in that party — including by someone who wishes to challenge or contest within that party the incumbent, in a primary election? Only incumbents have access to that crucial list — crucial for any candidate in a primary election (unless there is no incumbent who is of that party). Here’s an example: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a long-time unquestioningly loyal operative of Hillary Clinton, was selected by the Democratic President Barack Obama (though she had condemned Obama while he was running against Clinton in 2008) to run the Democratic National Committee, so that Obama’s Administration will be continued with little change by his (chosen) successor (just a change of the President’s name, and only a bit more of a neo-conservative on her foreign policies than he was). However, Ms. DWS has a very low approval-rating from her constituents, and a Bernie Sanders supporter wants to contest against her in a Democratic primary. But, he says: Last week, I called the Florida Democratic Party to request access to the voter file database and software known as VAN that is routinely used by Democratic candidates across the country. I was told that our campaign would be denied access to this database because I am running against an incumbent Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I was also told that any Democratic candidate running against an incumbent Democrat would be denied access. A reader-comment there was: I’ve learned that this is standard practice in most states, to block challengers from the same party going up against incumbents. I think it’s bullshit. I’ve asked people to give me some good reasoning why this is a standard practice, and *crickets*. In other words: Politicians campaign hypocritically saying they favor ’term-limits’ but universally support the real reason (which isn’t the lack of term-limits; it’s the lack of fairness, such as this) why even the most vile incumbents get re-‘elected’ time and again: this thuggish custom of the Democratic and Republican political Parties, which blocks challengers from having access to the most crucial tool for becoming a Party’s nominee: the list of that Party’s registerd voters. Only the existing incumbent can buy that list. (Of course, if the ‘opposite’ Party has the incumbent in the contest, then the DNC/RNC will sell the person that list in order to yank the seat to their Party. The most-rigged part of American ‘democracy’ might be primary elections, not general elections — which is what politicians most discuss in public as being rigged, such as especially both of GWB’s Presidential ‘wins’, which were exceptionally scandalous.) Among the many ways in which the United States is not a democracy, the operation of primaries by Parties which actually represent their incumbents and not at all the public, is an important one. And the incumbent politicians never publicize it. Only a few aspiring challengers ‘complain’ about it — and the public never likes a 'complainer.' What this means is that, if an incumbent serves well the donors who financed his/her campaign, then that person will almost certainly not be effectively challenged in a primary by someone else from that party, because that prospective challenger won’t even have access to the list of registered voted in that party. The only significant chance that the incumbent will be replaced (unless he/she quits and, say, becomes a lobbyist for those donors) is if the ‘opposite’ party can find a suitable person to run against him/her (by serving donors to the ‘other’ party — which donors might also be donors to both parties). In other words: the political Establishment consists of the aristocracy and its servants — within both parties. Both parties serve the aristocrats, sometimes even the same aristocrats, but, in other matters, serve the agenda that’s shared among the richest people in both parties. The only scientific study that has been done of the net results from such a system was described and linked-to here. It found that in the U.S., the aristocracy rule; the public do not. And here is a recent former U.S. President saying that his own experience and analysis of the U.S. political system is in accord with those findings.
